• (An exhaustive list of women I dated or wanted to date, along with their best and worst characteristics.)

• I stand still and time passes through me.

• Love is an acquired taste.

• Slow-dancing with my imagination.

• “I’m really glad,” she said, not knowing how much it meant to me and how happy I was the hear her say it, “that you started coming over on Friday nights.”

• There is no place in heaven or on earth better than in my arms.

• She chants and she cries and she holds this night as sacred as I.

• We rise to the levels of strength and bravery that our lives demand.

• Somehow it means more to have someone observe than I am lonely than it does to merely be lonely.

• Most people are made up of their bad habits and broken dreams.

• How does it feel? It feels like I am in a pressure chamber, and it’s all pressing on me, making me smaller, harder. Sometimes I feel like I will disappear completely. Right now, as I sit hunched and write backhanded and yarn tearfully, I remember than no matter who or where you are, you are not thinking about me.

• Don’t go. Stay. Don’t stray.

• The future is up for grabs, and the past is up for review.

• I looked at myself in the cold, harsh, judgmental light of that damned mirror and saw so much of myself I had to look away.

• Read me like a book. I dare you.

• I can still smell her on me, the smell of perfume and tears.

• Her whole life has left her unprepared for the kind of openness I offer.

• 3:13 am. You awaken mysteriously to the sound of my voice calling your name. You hear in me my need, my gifts, my love, my life. You sit up and look around. All seems as it should.

• I sit by the window and listen as the wind chimes play the loneliest song ever written.

• Her soft voice touches me with its illusion.

• The words loomed large when she said, “I love Richard.” Never mind that the rest of the sentence was, “because he always brings cookies.”

• Maybe I was tired, or maybe it was the music, but I swear I could hardly bear the next moment.

• You keep me alive by needing me in your life. Telling you who I am is who I am.

• You awaken. The pillow is cool, but for a moment it seems like someone is there with you. It’s me.

• Silence wraps around me like a boa constrictor.

• There is nothing inside my heart that is outside my reach.

• Cool night. Footsteps on the stairs. Clouds witness my tension as I wait for Darla or Lee or the last person I’ll ever see.

• Fire and wind from the sky laugh at my frail heart as I sit in the unwelcome darkness and miss your smile.

• Missing her comes in waves. Soon they will sweep me away.

• Dressed in black, I walk the night, not among the shadows, but as the shadows.

• Sometimes it feels like if you were to cut me open, my anger and pain would flood the world.

• “Swirling toilet of despair.” ~Aria

• I have blurred visions.

• The trouble with sex with M is that you’d have to get along with her for at least a whole day, and I can’t imagine being able to do that.

• The chocolate of truth

• Perspective: use it or lose it.

• If I believed in god, I’d hate him, but my disbelief deprives me of that luxury.

• When the New Order comes, anyone uttering the word “codependent” will spend six months in a reeducation camp.

• “Hello, Richard. I just wanted to tell you that life is a tragic and terrible struggle that is made harder by the fact that as a race, we are all tragically flawed. See you this weekend. Bye.” ~David, on my answering machine

On the morning of December 20, 1992, my flight instructor signed my logbook and got out of the airplane, and I flew solo for the first time. In addition to the first giant step to becoming a pilot, it was a symbolicly high moment in my personal life. My 1992 was over.

Leanring to fly, to overcome fear, challenges, and uncertainty, marked a new chapter in my life, a chapter filled with confidence and success.

4 Comments

Has it really been 25 years? Damn. Sometimes, 1992 seems like yesterday. If I had known you then, I doubt we would have liked each other. I was a judgmental, dogmatic shit of a Real Christian(tm), and despite my aspirations to be Deep Thought Man (not a very good superhero name), I limited my own thoughts at every turn.